Novel hepatitis C virus reporter replicon cell lines enable efficient antiviral screening against genotype 1a

The hepatitis C virus (HCV) subgenomic replicon is the primary tool for evaluating the activity of anti-HCV compounds in drug discovery research. Despite the prevalence of HCV genotype 1a (approximately 70% of U.S. HCV patients), few genotype 1a reporter replicon cell lines have been described; this is presumably due to the low replication capacity of such constructs in available Huh-7 cells. In this report, we describe the selection of highly permissive Huh-7 cell lines that support robust replication of genotype 1a subgenomic replicons harboring luciferase reporter genes. These novel cell lines support the replication of multiple genotype 1a replicons (including the H77 and SF9 strains), are significantly more permissive to genotype 1a HCV replication than parental Huh7-Lunet cells, and maintain stable genotype 1a replication levels suitable for antiviral screening. We found that the sensitivity of genotype 1a luciferase replicons to known antivirals was highly consistent between individual genotype 1a clonal cell lines but could vary significantly between genotypes 1a and 1b. Sequencing of the nonstructural region of 12 stable replicon cell clones suggested that the enhanced permissivity is likely due to cellular component(s) in these new cell lines rather than the evolution of novel adaptive mutations in the replicons. These new reagents will enhance drug discovery efforts targeting genotype 1a and facilitate the profiling of compound activity among different HCV genotypes and subtypes.